1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to tufting machines, a method of producing tufts in a base fabric and a tufted fabric and is more particularly concerned with a cut and loop overlay of a loop pile based fabric in a single pass of the base fabric and apparatus and a method of producing the same.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the past, tufting machines with laterally shiftable needles have been devised. U.S. Pat. No. 3,026,830 issued Mar. 27, 1962 to Bryant et al; U.S. Pat. No. 3,396,687 issued Aug. 13, 1986 to Nowicke; U.S. Pat. No. 4,366,761 issued Jan. 4, 1983 to Card and our U.S. Pat. No. 4,440,102 issued Apr. 3, 1984 all disclose tufting machines with laterally shiftable needle bars so as to permit a needle to selectively operate with one or two or more adjacent loopers.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,919,953 issued Nov. 18, 1975 to Card et al discloses a tufting machine employing two rows of needles, the front cooperating with a loop pile loopers and the back row with the cut pile loopers.
In the past, if it were desired to obtain a cut and loop overlay of a loop pile based fabric, it would have been necessary to use two machines, the loop pile base fabric being produced on one machine and the cut pile overlay being produced using a second machine. Of course, with the machine of U.S. Pat. No. 3,919,953, the cut pile could be sewn adjacent to the loop pile and thereby form a cover for the loops of the fabric.